Animation/Copy Stand

To begin set up: 

place your item/s on the grid surface below the camera. If you are digitizing a large item you may need to take multiple pictures, one section at a time, and stitch them together in photoshop with photo merge. We have a tutorial on doing this here. After placing your item, adjust and turn on the lights. The switches are located along the power cord from each light. The camera can also be raised or lowered by squeezing the black and gray box on the vertical pillar, and sliding it up and down. 

Adjusting the Camera:

Ensure the camera is plugged into the power supply (cable on the left side of the camera) and switch camera on. The rotating dial by the on switch also allows you to switch photography modes. Manual settings are most likely to get you the best results, and information on exposure and shutter speed can be found here. The scroll wheel controls shutter speed, and controls aperture if the AV button on the camera's back is held down. There is also a switch on the right side of the lens which lets you change between manual and auto focus. You should ensure that the camera is plugged into the computer via the cable on the right side. This cable has an extender and should be fully connected and plugged into the computer's usb port. To switch the camera view to the screen, press the button with a camera icon on the camera's back. Half press the shutter and hold to auto focus the camera, and full press to take a picture.

To use Dragonframe: 

Log into the Mac side of the computer and open Dragonframe. Select New Scene and number your scene and take, and choose your frame rate. You may also add a description and a production name/number up to 5 characters long. Once these are set, click OK. Dragonframe will then prompt you to choose a save location and ask for any permissions it needs to operate. Your project will save automatically. 

On the top menu click on Capture then hover over Capture Source, and check that Canon EOS Rebel T3i is set. From here, click the camera icon in the upper right corner. You can control all your camera's settings within Dragonframe using this window (Cinematography). On the top of the camera settings menu is shutter speed, followed by aperture, then ISO. Adjusting these you should see the brightness of your preview image change according to the settings. If you select the camera icon underneath the preview window it will enable live view. From here, select the crosshair icon beside it to activate focus view. The arrow keys that appear in the preview window allow you to adjust the focus if the lens is in auto focus mode. Otherwise you can see a zoomed-in view to adjust the focus manually. The rotate icon flips the preview window around 180 degrees, which you may find helpful due to the camera's orientation on the mount. The test shot button in the camera settings window will let you take a test image. To start capturing frames for animation, click the Animation icon to the left of the Cinematography icon, and hit the circle button on the Dragonframe keypad on the desk. To export the animation as video, select File>Export Movie

If you are using Dragonframe to capture large format documents and wish to export images instead of video, after taking the photos select File>Export Image Sequence

When you are finished, please remember to clean up, log out of the computer, and switch off the camera and lights.

For further instruction, video tutorials on using Dragonframe can be found on their website at https://www.dragonframe.com/tutorials/

To capture documents: Log into the computer using the Mac side, open Image Capture, then make sure you have selected Canon EOS Rebel T3i as the source. Adjust your camera settings and take a picture. The image will appear within the Image Capture window. Repeat with the next page or section of your document. On the bottom of the window you will see a drop down menu labeled "Import To". By default this is set to Pictures, but you can select another location, or by selecting "Other.." see more options, including one to create a new folder. Once your location is set, click on download all. Your photos are saved in your selected location and are available for editing or saving to your external drive. To stitch images together you will need to open Photoshop. If it prompts you to log in, sign in with Gmail and your Umich credentials. If this method is not functioning as expected, please use Dragonframe.